Apple's iPad mini will make up about half of Apple's total iPad shipments in 2013

The fact that Apple's iPad is predicted to steal much of the tablet market share next year is no surprise; however, the fact that the iPad mini may outpace the iPad 2 and the new iPad is certainly interesting.

According to DisplaySearch, which is a global market research and consulting firm, Apple's iPad mini will make up about half of Apple's total iPad shipments in 2013.

Apple expects to ship a total of 100 million iPads in 2013. Out of that total, DisplaySearch predicts that the iPad mini will account for about 50 million of those shipments while the new iPad and the iPad 2 will ship about 40 million and 10 million respectively.

DisplaySearch further predicts that there will be a total of 170 million tablet shipments in 2013 (from all tablet makers, not just Apple). If Apple were to achieve the 100 million shipments, it would have about 60 percent of the market share.

For 2012, despite being released in October, the iPad mini is holding its own concerning sales. In Q3, Apple shipped 1.6 million, and for Q4, the tech giant is asking panel makers to ship over 12 million.

This is an interesting prediction, considering many saw the iPad mini as being far too expensive for a 7-inch tablet (starts at $329) when so many others in the 7-inch arena typically start at $199 (i.e., Google Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD).

The iPad mini was unveiled in late October of this year. It sports a 7.85-inch display, a 1024x768 resolution, dual-core A5 processor, 16GB/32GB/64GB storage options for $329/$429/$529 respectively, a lightning connector and LTE capabilities for an extra $130 to those sticker prices.

quote: This is an interesting prediction, considering many saw the iPad mini as being far too expensive for a 7-inch tablet

This is exactly my opinion. I don't know what can people do with a 7-inch tablet priced at more than 300 bucks. If I were to make a choice, I'd prefer a bigger one. Yes, it costs more but it does more.

What some people are ignoring is the iPad mini is actually cutting into the sales of the larger iPads and the mini is expected to have a lower profit margin than the larger ones. Its not like people are picking up the both the 8" and the 10" they are picking up one of the other. Sales will probably start stalling in the next several months as they reach their maximum market penetration you either have an iPad already or your getting the mini if your staying with Apple. There is little repeat customers because the new ones are incremental upgrades not generational.

iPhone 5 sales are flopping in China. Chinese consumers think its not that much of an increase over the 4s. The idea that one size phone fits all is not flying everywhere. Its still a big seller for AT&T here in the states but not around the world.

The Mini might save it another quarter but without any miracles in the pipeline its only a matter of time. The stock is already showing weakness.

Purely out of curiosity, what is it that you do on the iPad Mini, that you don't/can't with the regular iPad and vice versa? I personally can't see how owning both is nothing more than functionality overlap and complete redundancy.

The iPad 4 is for me and the mini is for my wife. ;) I love the speed of the A6X processor and the beautiful retina display, where me wife prefers the light and smaller form factor of he mini. Also love the fact iCloud syncs everything between her iPhone 5 and mini. Pretty dang slick experience.

Yeah, I don't think there would be any reason for me personally to own both. However my wife wasn't interested in an iPad 4. She wanted something smaller so it wasn't like the mini was eating into an iPad 4 sale.

quote: What some people are ignoring is the iPad mini is actually cutting into the sales of the larger iPads and the mini is expected to have a lower profit margin than the larger ones. Its not like people are picking up the both the 8" and the 10" they are picking up one of the other. Sales will probably start stalling in the next several months as they reach their maximum market penetration you either have an iPad already or your getting the mini if your staying with Apple. There is little repeat customers because the new ones are incremental upgrades not generational.

iPhone 5 sales are flopping in China. Chinese consumers think its not that much of an increase over the 4s. The idea that one size phone fits all is not flying everywhere. Its still a big seller for AT&T here in the states but not around the world.

The Mini might save it another quarter but without any miracles in the pipeline its only a matter of time. The stock is already showing weakness.

How can you deny that the mini is in fact cutting into the sales of the 4 when plenty of sites are saying the same thing ? What could Tony possibly "know" that no one else dies ? My favorite term used by the media so far is cannibalized. It sounds so dirty. I

I fully understand that it is a defense mechanism to deny any negativity towards crApple. I guess your whole "Apple are doomed" saying is just your nervous reaction. It is like when little kids pretend to laugh while trying not to cry when they get hurt.

It still doesn't hide the fact that Apple's sales are suffering. The world is finally realizing that incremental updates aren't "innovations" anymore. It will take us Americans alittle longer as we are dumber than the rest of the world.

I'd like you to get some sales numbers from the corporate sales department breaking down sales of the 4 compared to the 5 and mini to the 4. Then somehow explain how the Chinese market will no it affect the overall market and all is still well.

Sheesh - you guys are such simpletons sometimes, particularly when it's about anything to do with Apple. I know that you yearn so deeply, and seemingly so futilely, for Apple to crash that you want to twist everything and anything into another prop for your fantasy of Apple failure but it just makes you look silly.

The iPod Mini cannibalized the sales of the original iPod

The iPhone cannibalized the sales of the iPods

The Macbook Air cannibalized the sales of the MacBook Pro

The iPad cannibalized the sales of the Macbook Air

The iPad Mini cannibalized the sales of the iPad

And so it goes on. Notice the pattern? Consumers switching from one Apple product to another (plus of course each product iteration brings millions of customers new to Apple), and customers switching from one Apple product to another Apple product are still Apple customers.

Apple has always been willing to move on to the next thing, it's luddites like you that struggle with new tech (which is one of the reasons you find Apple so hard to take).

When Tim Cook was recently asked by an analyst about the newly unveiled iPad mini’s “cannibalisation factor over the older product,” Cook replied:

quote: We don’t really have an older product. We only have new products. We just announced the fourth generation iPad.

The way we look at this is that we provide a fantastic iPod touch, we provide an incredible fourth generation iPad, iPad mini and iPad 2,” Cook continued. “Customers will decide which one, or two, or three, or all four of them they would like and will buy them.

We’ve learned over the years not to worry about cannibalization of our own product,” Cook explained. “It’s much better for us to do that than for somebody else to do it.

And the far, far bigger opportunity here are the 80-90 million PCs that are being sold per quarter,” said Cook. “There’s still over 300 million PCs being bought per year. And I think a great number of those people would be much better off buying an iPad or a Mac. And so I think that’s a much better opportunity for Apple.

And so, instead of being focused on cannibalising ourselves, I look at it much more that it’s an enormous incremental opportunity for us.

You know who is working the hardest on developing the iPhone killer and the iPad killer? Apple.

quote: I think a great number of those people would be much better off buying an iPad or a Mac.

I can't agree with it. When I had my iPad, I tried to replace my PC with it. The problem I had is the lack of mouse support. There was no GUI to support a mouse.

When I went to a popular Apple forum asking if there was a mouse that would work with the iPad, the response I received was, "It's a touchscreen! You don't need a mouse!"

Not everyone wants to sit or lay there reaching out to the touchscreen of the iPad to navigate it. I'm more comfortable holding my hand in one spot to navigate - I use a thumb-controlled trackball mouse.

I sold my iPad for enough funds to buy an Asus TF300 that, with the keyboard dock, has a full-size USB port that will run peripherals (wired or wireless mice etc) and HDDs. I now use my very same PC trackball mouse with my tablet.

The iPad won't displace any computer system so long as it can't do what a computer can do.

Until Apple seriously overhauls iOS' multitasking, it's not going to make a good PC replacement even if you add a keyboard and mouse. The way iOS works right now, nearly all apps can only run in the background for 5 seconds. They can ask for a 10 minute reprieve, but after that they're forcibly frozen (don't get any CPU time until they become foreground again).http://www.macworld.com/article/1164616/how_ios_mu...

Android is a bit more permissive. It lets apps continue running in the background so long as there is free RAM. But once you hit the point where a PC would start swapping, Android orders the longest-unused app to close. That's why Samsung's side-by-side view (two apps on screen at once) on the Note/Note II works - Android doesn't prevent any two apps from running simultaneously.

Remember folks, these are still phone OSes. They were designed to work best with the limited CPU and memory of a phone from several years ago. They don't work as well if you try to use them like a general purpose PC.

> And so it goes on. Notice the pattern? Consumers switching from one Apple product to another (plus of course each product iteration brings millions of customers new to Apple), and customers switching from one Apple product to another Apple product are still Apple customers.

The problem, at least for the investors, is that in this case the Mini is cannabalizing the sales of a higher margin product, so the end result is less profit. Now is it less profit then if they hadn't released the 8" model at all? I suspect it is.

Personally I wouldn't go near the lower resolution Mini when superior alternatives exist. It's the full ipad or nothing, at least until Apple plays catchup.

1. You admit that iPad Minis are cannabilizing iPads.2. We know that margins on Minis are fall less than full iPads.3. This means Apple is making less money per sale on average.4. This is bad news for investors.5. This causes share price to decrease.6. Google/Samsung exist.7. Panic.8. OMFG!9. Share price bubble begins to collapse.

In your view, of course, making less profit per unit sales should trigger a share price increase because...it's magic!

I don't care for sales number pissing contests, but what is your assumption based on aside from gut instinct and analyst guesses? Official numbers just came out, three million units sold in the first weekend in China compared to five million units sold to the rest of the world in its first weekend. It is on track to beat 4S sales, which hit 30 million units sold in half the time that the GS3 did.

And yes, China has a massive population and these sales numbers are a drop in the bucket. The thing is that China is basically a Germany or UK attached to a dirt poor country of over 1 billion. Taken in that context the sales numbers are bigger than I thought they would be, just imagine if a Western European country by itself made up for what much in iPhone sales.

As for the billion+ Chinese living in poverty, no way Apple is breaking into that market unless they start selling unsubsidized featurephones (the bulk of Android sales) for almost nothing, and that ain't happening anytime soon.

iPhone sales are flopping in China?You mean the TWO MILLION iPhone5 sales of the opening weekend? That's substantially more than a billion dollars in revenue for Apple --- in two days!What exactly would you define as a flop?

You do know that it's 2012, not 1982 You can't just state random shit on the internet and expect everyone to happily swallow it.

Why not just quote random, unfounded shit. It's what DailyTurd and its rabid anti-apple conforming conformist zealots do best. Or worst.

First iPad mini sales were going to be terrible. Oops they weren't. OK so lets move on and fabricate that the mini has trounced demand for the 4th gen (which of course makes no sense at all and will be shown with actual figures in due course).

So instead move onto alleged single person queues for Chinese iPhone 5 launch. Uh, oh it was on a preorder only system. Ok let's ignore that mistake and move on to iMac won't be available until 2013. Oh, that's wrong too. Um, ok what else is there at the moment for DailyTurd to fabricate inside knowledge of?

Who actually cares about all these speculations, negative ones I mean. I see lots of accusations that Apple users are obsessed with sales figures, which yeah is a bit sad I agree. But what's TRAGIC is how obsessed Apple haters are...

I'm sorry to have to say this but... they are. Maybe ignorant isn't really the correct word.

Anyway I used to work in Dixons all those years back and DVD was just hitting the shops... . We had a few instore displays showing the pure quality of DVD over VHS and you'd have so, so many people watching the clips saying, 'ohhh isn't is so clear' and all the usual stuff.

It isn't all marketing, DVD is still objectively better than VHS in every way. Just because people are taken in by marketing or false demos like your DVD demo running off of a VHS player, it doesn't mean that it still isn't better.

Same logic applies here, some people may blindly buy an iPhone because of hype and marketing, but it doesn't change the fact that it is still a leading product in specific categories (fastest hardware with best apps and support).

The problem is when you run into marketing hype that isn't backed up by a good product (Sony, Bose, Dell/HP consumer line, Beats Audio, etc), that sucks.

Naw, it's the same as any field. The enthusiasts appreciate all the nuances and depth particular to the field. For tech enthusiasts, they like things like self-programmability, hackability, expandability, standard connections, etc.

Then the mass market who doesn't care about that stuff comes in and pulls the rug out from under them. They set a new "standard" based on sheer numbers alone, which leaves the enthusiasts out cold from the product they helped pioneer. That was what was so great about HP in the 1980s and early 1990s. They made mass market stuff, but they never forgot their enthusiast roots. While Compaq used a custom BIOS locking you into Compaq parts, and Dell used a non-standard motherboard power system, everything about HP was standard. You could take it apart and fix it with off the shelf components.

Apple is doing the mass market stuff and simultaneously locking the enthusiasts out of their own devices. If Apple were to dominate the market, the enthusiasts' whole reason for liking tech evaporates. That's why they want Apple to lose. (Personally I want Apple to stick around, since I imagine an Android monopoly won't be much better than the Microsoft monopoly.)

You're probably the same guy who watches the alpha males in your neighborhood get all of the hot girls while you're lurking in the shadows saying to your lonely self and anyone else within earshot "I'm smarter than he is and I don't know what she sees in him."

The "nerd fallacy" goes like this... "I am smarter than everyone else so my opinion and my value must be higher and better than everyone else's." It is clearly flawed and filled with Haterade.

Modding this comment down may make you feel better, but it will have no effect on your lack of insight (which is what sales people have in spades over technical people). That's why they sell and why nerds hate on them.

One of these days reality might smack you right between the eyes and you'll finally understand that opinions don't matter, the only thing that does really matter is the sales numbers.

Just are you're proof positive if there is an article that points out anything by Apple in any way, people will line up to whine about it. I'm sure only big smart super smarties buy the crap on your desk or pocket :) Because you know- you are the tech expert. Everyone else is ignorant.

It's hard to believe people willingly spout that kind of 3rd grade logic in comment sections.

After playing with the iPad mini in person, I'm not sure it wouldn't be a better choice than a full-sized tablet for me personally (I use an iPad 3 now). My tablet use is generally reading news sites, magazines, and ebooks while lounging around or laying in bed and the mini feels like a much more comfortable size/weight for at least the latter two. The weight difference in particular is very distinct.

Now whether it is better than a $199 Nexus 7 is another question, but honestly, the $130 difference is just not that big a deal to me especially for a device that I will probably use for an hour or two a day for a couple of years.

Isn't that a point to consider thouggh? while you might use it for a couple of years, there seems a really unexplainable amount of folk who will replace it 6-12 month down the line.

I am like yourself, in that price isn't really an option as i will use it for years, but as with the futurama episode, apple has a way of getting people to buy up the next model 6 months later. With apple it has always seemed that it is more a question of how "cool" are you as opposed to what functionality do you truly need from your device when it comes to new models.

Who know, will be interesting to see how figures pan out, but wel, knowing apple, it doesn't matter in any way how they price their deice, they have their audience. I've a waitres at work who is dead set on getting an ipad mini. This price doesn't concern her, the hardwarre doesn't concern her, she genuinely just wants it because it's apple. We've moved on from addidas popups, not things are based on your tech and kids just have to have it, for that same odl reason that everyone else does.

All I can say is that I find it very interesting how many regular folks come to me for advice on what tablet to buy this year and they refer to all tablets collectively as iPad's. My mom actually has a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 and still refers to it as an iPad. This goes to show that Apple is great at marketing.

"If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel." -- AMD CEO Hector Ruiz in 2007